


Comrade Carmilla

by dairycow



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Comedy, Communism, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluffy Ending, Funny, Happy Ending, Humor, Parody, Satire, Silly, Trolling, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-08-14 05:35:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 10,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8000464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dairycow/pseuds/dairycow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Laura is a radical communist, Carmilla is a member of the bourgeois intelligentsia, and the students of Silas are fighting to overturn the university administration.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which we meet Comrade Laura

**Author's Note:**

> There was no need for this to exist in the world, so I made it anyway. Lol you're welcome. Hope you enjoy and forgive me if I mess up my communist theory - I haven't written about communism before. Please drop me a line on my Tumblr if you want to talk; I like friends :D https://chelseathecow.tumblr.com/

Laura Hollis flipped her laptop open, grimacing at the sleek metal machine that was probably produced by starving oppressed children in Africa. Nevertheless, she was still forced by the bourgeois school administration to make use of their instrument of oppression. It was the easiest way for her to incite her fellow students to revolt against the bourgeois intelligentsia.

Laura was on a mission. Her roommate had been missing since the previous night, and in the morning, she had found a note from the school administration telling her that Comrade Betty Spielsdorf had dropped out. The note was clearly bogus, because Betty would have never left so abruptly, especially not when she and Laura had a workers’ council meeting to attend the following day. That was the straw that had broken the camel’s back. Laura had known that the administration was exploiting the proletariat student body because of their youth, inexperience, and lack of means of production. But now, to have the capitalist class so openly kidnapping her comrades? That was unacceptable. Now, it was time for Laura to lead the student body in their quest for liberty, justice, and equality.


	2. In which Laura meets her new roommate

Laura had taken the whole night to go through all of the security tapes on campus. The system was totally a ploy to surveil the students of Silas and make sure they weren’t engaging in any subversive activities or trying to shed their veil of ignorance, but Laura had to admit that it also made trying to find her comrade that much easier. However, she had yet to find any video evidence that the bourgeoisie had taken her comrade.

Suddenly, the door swung open. Laura jumped in her seat. What if it was the dean’s army of brainwashed minions, come to lock her away before she stripped away even more of the collective ignorance of the students? She found herself face to face with a gorgeous comrade dressed in black. No, she was a communist, she couldn’t have thoughts like that. Laura corrected herself. This new comrade was equally gorgeous and obviously dressed in black because she was infected with false consciousness. All colours were equal, it was just that red was more equal than the others.

“Hey,” the new comrade said.

“Excuse me, but who the hell are you?” Laura had to confirm that it was indeed a new comrade come to join her, not a minion of the capitalist class come to oppress her.

“Carmilla. I’m your new roommate, sweetheart.”

Laura frowned. She would much rather have preferred the girl address her as ‘comrade’, but she guessed that this poor girl was just as brainwashed as everybody else by the administration. That, of course, would change over time. Plus, there were more important things to discuss than semantics at the moment.

“I have a roommate,” Laura told Carmilla.

“Well, don’t you catch on fast.” The languid and apathetic tone that her new comrade spoke in was getting on Laura’s nerves. She supposed that the false consciousness ran deep in this one.

“No, I mean I have a pre-existing roommate. Her name’s Betty…” Laura paused. “She’s missing right now.”

“I see,” Carmilla said. She took a long sip of the capitalist grape soda that was in the fridge. Laura wasn’t quite ready to give up her bad habit of soda repression of the people, but she knew that she would have to change once her communist plans had succeeded. “So you can’t produce this Betty or anything but you want me to leave.”  
Laura had only just spotted Carmilla riffling through Comrade Betty’s things. She picked up a particularly attractive top, dyed a dark shade of red, with the hammer and sickle printed across the front. “What are you doing? Stop that, those aren’t yours!” she cried out.

“Well, they are in my half room cutie. Plus, aren’t you supposed to be a communist or something? And isn’t common ownership something that you’re supposed to believe in?”

Laura paused to consider it. Carmilla did have a point. Ownership was indeed indivisible, and that meant whatever was Betty’s was also Carmilla’s.

“So, am I right, cupcake?”

Laura smiled. “You’ll be a great comrade. I’m sure of it.”


	3. In which Laura swears to Marx

Laura had decided to embrace some of the stellar common ownership spirit that her new roommate exemplified so well, and thus decided to use some of Carmilla’s corporate soy milk for her cereal. Bad idea.

“See. Blood. In the milk container.” Laura turned towards her floor don, Perry, yet another symbol of the class system that was pervasive throughout the university, but also a pretty darn good communist, and her floor don’s best friend, LaF.

“Well, there’s no denying that it’s a little odd,” Perry began.

“Odd?” LaF interrupted. “How many people you know take type O with their chocolate crunch?”

“But Laura, you did say so yourself, the girl’s just a poor student who’s been brainwashed, and she could make a really great communist,” Perry continued. “And you haven’t given her a chance to explain herself. Maybe she had to use necessary violence against the administration to further the revolutionary cause. Give her a chance.”

Laura nodded. She supposed Perry was right. “Alright, I’ll give Carmilla a chance to explain. But, if it turns out that blood happened because she was fighting any war except for the war for equality, I swear to Marx…”

Perry smiled. “Good girl.”

LaF just shook their head. “You cray, Perry,” they said.

“And Carmilla will be gone soon. Betty will come back, just like the other girls who went missing.”

“There have been other girls who have gone missing?” Laura asked incredulously. “Stupid… bourgeois intelligentsia… oppressing the proletariat… exploitation of the working class… GAH!”

LaF stared at her. “You really didn’t know about this?”  
Laura shook her head.

“Two other girls went missing, without a trace. They both reappeared two days later, just as mysteriously, unharmed, and with no idea what happened to them. And spouting massive amounts of capitalistic propaganda. How did you not know about this?”

“Corporate coverups. Yeah, that seems about right. But more to the point, I need to speak with these girls.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I can't believe the amount of people that actually appreciate this giant meme I created to entertain myself. Honestly, guys, thanks :) Really hope I don't disappoint but I feel like it's bound to happen especially since I don't have a good grasp on communism or a sense of humour so expect to be disappointed


	4. In which Laura is chewed out by the bourgeois intelligentsia

At that moment, Carmilla entered the room, wearing the hammer and sickle shirt, and made a beeline for the fridge. Comrade Perry and Comrade LaF stared at her, before they quickly left the room.

“Yeah, you’re not going to find your soy milk in there.”

“It was just a prank.”

Laura’s heart fell in her chest. The grand hopes and dreams that she had of Carmilla becoming her right hand comrade were dashed. “What a waste! Why prank fellow members of the proletariat when we need to unite against the bourgeois intelligentsia running this school?” she ranted.

Carmilla laughed. “That bunched up little face you make when you’re angry is hilarious, buttercup.”

“I wonder how hilarious it will be when I get the dean of students to kick you out!” Laura regretted the words as soon as they spilled from her mouth. Sure, her roommate was abrasive and rude and apathetic, but she was just another victim of false consciousness, and she was a promising young communist. And even if she wasn’t, she was still a prole, and the dean was still bourgeois, and how could Laura even think of free association with Carmilla in the future when she had just threatened to call the oppressors of the student body on her?

“You’re a child. And you understand nothing. Not about life, not about this place, and certainly not about what it takes to survive this world.” Carmilla was spitting words out like they were fire, but Laura only knew it was because she was hurt that she wasn’t a good enough communist yet, and was turning against the cause that would save her. She was spouting capitalist brainwash, but Laura let her continue, because then, maybe Carmilla would see the folly of her beliefs.

“I’m not going to give up. I’m through with the mindless oppression of the students by the administration. I’m going to figure out what the bourgeoisie does with all those girls, and then we’re going to overthrow the administration. Because I deserve better. Betty deserves better. Hell, even you deserve better.”

“What are you doing?” Carmilla asked, sitting up in her bed.

“I’m posting this online. To let our comrades know that the revolution has begun.” Laura hit the ‘post’ button, and a second later, the campus alarm began to wail.


	5. In which Laura meets Comrade Danny

“Apparently, uploading anything inflammatory to the Silas Ethernet sets off an immediate security response.” Laura glared at her laptop camera. It was just like the administration, to perpetuate the widespread ignorance of the student body. The class warfare had been going on forever, but this was one of the few instances where it boiled over and permeated normal student life.

“Thanks for letting me use your bathroom.” The newest comrade that Laura had met emerged from their washroom. Danny Lawrence was tall, ginger, and perhaps an even better communist than Betty. She had stood up for Laura at that town hall where the dean chewed her out for investigating the missing girls.

“Don’t worry about it!” Laura grabbed the stool that Carmilla had brought into their shared room and set it down in front of the webcam. “Everyone, meet Danny Lawrence! My English Lit TA, and VP of Outdoor Rec for the Summer Society.” Laura figured that she might need a spy on her side, one who was in with the administration and in with other student organizations as well. Danny was perfect for the job.

“So, the town hall. Everybody was petrified that the dean was going to suck their souls out through their eyeballs and didn’t say anything about the injustice and oppression that the administration was inflicting on the students and then Danny gets up and just…”

“No, it wasn’t a big deal.” Laura’s heart warmed as she found yet another deeply communist quality in Danny Lawrence, humility. “I simply wanted to point out that you shouldn’t be calling a missing persons report a rumour when one of our own members went missing at a rush party.”

“See, totally amazing.” Laura could feel herself falling for her new comrade. She was a true communist through and through. What more could a girl ask for?

“Not that it meant much after the bourgeois Zetas started on that safety patrol crap. You know, it’s just a faux chivalrous way to oppress the proletariat even more!”

“And then the dean ended the town hall before anybody could actually talk about anything! This is how the administration brainwashes the students. They control the media. Everything has to first be censored by the bourgeoisie before the proles are even allowed to hear it!” Laura threw her hands up in the air.

“That’s right. You heard us, students of Silas.” Danny peered straight into the camera. “It’s time that we stop being sheep. The Silas administration holds absolute power over us. As in history past, we are the oppressed majority, and we have been under the thumb of the oppressive minority for as long as this university has stood. It is time to take back the power. Join us, Silas, as we begin the Students’ Revolution!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tfw Laura refers to Carmilla as a comrade in the 16th episode...


	6. In which Laura and Danny try to solve the mystery of the missing comrades

“Danny and I have been working nonstop, and not that we’re geniuses or anything, because the term genius implies that we’re not all equal, but I think we’re really close to a breakthrough!” Laura announced to her webcam.

Danny turned from the whiteboard in the middle of the room. “Nah, I totally think we’re geniuses. Or maybe just top rate socialists.” They smiled at each other, and Laura’s heart fluttered in her chest as she realized that they were totally having a moment.

“UGH.” The magic quickly dissipated as Carmilla gagged loudly. “Oh, sorry, I just got really nauseous all of a sudden.”

Laura rolled her eyes. Carmilla was obviously just jealous at how good of a communist Danny was.

“So, as far as we know, we have four missing comrades. All have disappeared at workers’ council meetings, two have reappeared, and both have no memory of what happened.”

“Okay. I personally think that it’s just another case of scaremongering among the proletariat so that we wouldn’t dare to dream of a stateless and classless society.”

“I agree with you, and I also think that the administration is behind this, but how do we prove it? We need stone cold evidence that even the bourgeoisie can’t refute. And how do we find out where they’re keeping the missing girls and what they’re doing with them?”

“Maybe we need to talk with the missing girls.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry sorry sorry D: I know this is deeply late but hope you enjoy. This fic might drag on for a very very long time but I promise it will end in a very fluffy and communist way and won't be trapped in the abyss of unfinished fics. Also very very pumped about Act 2 dropping tomorrow!!! In the meantime, please do check out my other Carmilla fic, Someone Worth Saving, for a canon Carmilla/Ell backstory http://archiveofourown.org/works/8027734/chapters/18381301 It's a lot less communist and a lot more fluffy and angsty, and also if I'm held accountable, I might finish that fic too (probably in a year or so tbh, but still, that's something). In other news, we were going through old family photos the other day and I found a communist party planner that once belonged to my grandpa. New chapter will be posted tomorrow so stay tuned!


	7. In which Laura defends the truth philosophy, communism

“They weren’t like this before they were taken, trust me,” Perry said, shaking her head. “If they were, I would have whupped some sense into them a long long time ago.” 

Laura glanced over at the two girls, both wrapped in capitalist bourgeois American flags knitted by oppressed child slaves in Thailand. Sarah Jane was talking angrily, to nobody in particular, about her false anti-communist beliefs, and Natalie was nodding away.

“Communism is the cause of famine. The Russian Famine of 1921, the Chinese famine during the Great Leap Forward, and the North Korean Famine? All caused by communism.”

Laura buried her face in her hands. “What even happened to them?”

“I don’t know,” Perry said. “Before, they were fine, upstanding young comrades. They wore the hammer and sickle and went to workers’ council meetings and everything!”

“They were definitely brainwashed when they were kidnapped,” Laura said.

“And communism encourages people to be lazy!” Sarah Jane yelled, shaking her fist at Laura.

“No, it doesn’t, you ignorant brainwashed sheep!” Laura exploded. Sure, the girls couldn’t help it, but she could, and she would defend her true beliefs to the death. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs! That does not mean that people will be less incentivized to produce as much as they can!”

“Laura,” Perry warned. “The poor girl’s been brainwashed. Go easy on her.” She began to herd the two sheeple out of Laura’s dorm when LaF burst in communistly.

“You have to hide, Laura. The dean’s here,” they yelled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I know this came up early but I really couldn't wait to post it. Since waiting for Act 2 made me antsy, I got very very into OITNB and now I have yet another time drain in my life. As always, check out the angsty Carmilla/Ell fic Someone Worth Saving http://archiveofourown.org/works/8027734/chapters/18381301 I'm on tumblr so feel free to reach out, I always love new friends! chelseathecow.tumblr.com


	8. In which Carmilla fights a symbolic battle against the bourgeois intelligentsia

Laura knew that she shouldn’t have been so smug. The bourgeois dean was reprimanding her roommate, a member of the proletariat. But it was her awful and rude and mean roommate.

“This is so childish,” Perry said, shaking her head at Laura. “Carmilla is still our comrade. She’s still on our side, and the dean is still our enemy.”

“I didn’t go out of my way to get you accepted here to have you behaving like this,” LaF repeated, their ear to the door. “If you don’t take care of this situation, I will.” They laughed. “She is so in trouble!”

“Schadenfreude isn’t very attractive, Laura,” Perry reminded her. “Especially concerning your – our – fellow comrades!”

“I know, but she so had it coming!” Laura replied.

Suddenly, the door swung open and Carmilla stormed in. She sat down heavily on the bed. LaF and Perry just stared at her before scurrying out. They seemed to do a lot of that when Carmilla was around.

“Did you want to talk about it?” Laura asked.

“No. And I ‘so had it coming’, didn’t I?” Carmilla huffed.

“Look, I didn’t mean it like that.” Laura was lying, but she didn’t have the heart to give her comrade a harder time. After all, an enemy of the dean’s was a friend of hers. “Why was she chewing you out anyways?”

“I said some things she didn’t like.”

“AHA! I knew that fascist was censoring the students! When, in your seminar?”

“This age doesn’t understand obligation. It’s like an undersea anchor that’s impossible to escape.” Carmilla sniffled and grabbed a tissue produced with the blood of a thousand child soldiers in Sudan.

Laura swore that she could hear the bourgeois intelligentsia through Carmilla’s words. “Worried you aren’t living up to expectations, huh? Only child of a deeply communist dad here.”

At that moment, Danny barged into the room. “I have returned, victorious!” She produced a chip from her pocket. “Turns out, the Politburo has been phototracking every workers’ party meeting on campus.”

“And now we can track all of the missing girls. Danny, you’re brilliant! Well, I mean, as equally brilliant as the entire student body, but just more equally brilliant.” Just as Laura and Danny were about to have another moment, Carmilla loudly cleared her throat.

“Sorry, I just realized I have to be anywhere but here right now.” She stomped out of the room. Laura smiled sheepishly at Danny.

“Just jealous of the awesome communist sitting right in front of me.”


	9. In which Laura and Danny discovers that the conspiracy runs deep

“I think I’m onto something here,” Danny said. “Look at these photos of all of the missing girls at those workers’ council meetings.”

“Yeah?” Laura asked.

“See who’s sitting beside them?”

Laura’s jaw fell open. “Carmilla. I have no idea what’s going on, but it seems like she’s up to her capitalist eyeliner in it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's pretty short, but there'll be another one out in a few hours to make up for it!


	10. In which Laura embraces yet another aspect of the communist lifestyle, surveillance

“Hello gentle viewers,” Laura began to her webcam. “The Roommate Surveillance Project has been active for the past week, and the results have been profoundly disturbingly bourgeois.” She clicked through the surveillance footage again. “Other than Carmilla half embracing the concept of common ownership, the rest of the activities she engages in have been deeply capitalist and sketchy. Even though she insists on using the clothing that Betty left behind and my yellow pillow, she refuses to participate in the other half of common ownership, hence, not letting me touch anything of hers! Plus, she is profoundly lazy. She wakes at 5 in the afternoon, disappears for long stretches during which Perry, Danny, LaF, and I can’t find her, and never does chores! Carmilla may be a member of the proletariat, but she’s failing our cause. From each according to their ability my ass! Her abilities are severely limited, but her efforts are still vastly underwhelming, taking that into consideration.”

“Hey, Creampuff.” Laura jumped in her seat as Carmilla sauntered back into the room.

“Uhhh, hi,” Laura replied.

“Jumpy much?” Carmilla tossed a book onto the desk. “I found your book on the grounds. Thought you might want it back.”

Laura read the title. “The Communist Manifesto.” She opened the front cover and found her name scribbled onto the page. “It must have fallen out of my bag when I was coming back from class.”

“Yeah, well I figured that you might want it back before the dean spotted it and had you expelled.”

“Wow.” Laura was taken aback by the uncharacteristic goodwill that Carmilla was showing her. “Thanks!”

“It’s nothing. You’re annoying, but they might just stick me with someone even more radical if you were expelled.” She met Laura’s eyes and smiled. Laura couldn’t help but smile back.

“Right.” As suddenly as she had entered, Carmilla stood up and left the room again.

“Is she… She’s flirting… With me?” Laura asked the camera as soon as Carmilla was safely out of earshot. It certainly seemed so. Laura turned around to make sure that her roommate hadn’t come back. She noticed a photo fluttering to the ground. It must have fallen out of Carmilla’s pocket.

“Hey!” Laura yelled. She picked up the photo and ran after her, but the girl was gone, as mysteriously as she had arrived.

Laura studied the photo. There were fifteen people in the frame. The dean, the president, the 6 members of the board of directors, as well as various faculty heads, all of them members of the bourgeois intelligentsia. However, Laura’s gaze caught and her breath hitched in her throat as she saw the person standing beside the dean. Carmilla.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, remember to check out Someone Worth Saving http://archiveofourown.org/works/8027734/chapters/18381301 and reach out on Tumblr! http://chelseathecow.tumblr.com/


	11. In which Laura finds out that Carmilla is a member of the bourgeois intelligentsia

“There has to be something in here!” LaF grumbled as they haphazardly tossed the items in Carmilla’s corporately smug Samsonite suitcase manufactured by malnourished orphans in Nepal onto her bed. Laura had rolled her eyes when she saw the logo, remembering that Carmilla was just part of the brainwashed sheeple, but she had more important things to do. Like figuring out who Carmilla Karnstein actually was.

“Well, look faster!” Perry hissed. “I can see her coming up the stairs.”

“Found it,” Laura cried triumphantly. She grabbed the old photo album that LaF had produced from the suitcase.

“Hurry!” Perry hissed, the urgency in her voice growing. Laura opened the album and began to flip. Page after page of Carmilla photos stared back at her. Carmilla as a baby dressed in Louis Vuitton onesies, Carmilla playing cricket, Carmilla holding a glass of pricey champagne, Carmilla graduating from a private all-girls boarding school.

“Look,” LaF pointed at a photo of toddler Carmilla being held by a woman.

“Who is she?” Laura asked, squinting at the woman’s blurry face.

“It’s the dean.”


	12. In which Laura and comrades plan a makeshift gulag for Carmilla

“We need to trap her. She’s part of the bourgeois intelligentsia, she’s in cahoots with the oppressors, and we have to do something! We need to stop her before she continues to spread false consciousness among the students and stops our revolution before it even starts.”

“But how?” Danny asked Laura.

“I know something that might work, but you’re not going to like it,” LaF suggested.

“Spill.”

“Well, it did look like Carmilla was flirting with Laura earlier. She obviously wants her for something.”

“Yeah, she wants to kidnap me so the students will be scared into submission,” Laura mumbled.

“Well yeah. So we use your radical communist self as bait. You lure her into your room and we wait outside your door. When the appointed time comes, we rush in and tie her up and then we can interrogate her.”


	13. In which Laura seduces Carmilla

“You got ridiculously expensive champagne?” Laura gawked at Carmilla, who was holding the bottle and two flutes in her hands.

“Yes. I thought it would be a nice way for us to toast our newfound friendship.” Laura scoffed internally at this. “You know, they served champagne at the first party I ever went to.”

“Probably because you’re part of the bourgeois intelligentsia, and you have heaps and heaps of money to spend on champagne and Louis Vuitton and cricket and other capitalist goods like that,” Laura blurted out.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing,” Laura replied, noticing her momentary blunder. “I just said that I prefer beer more. It’s a classic Soviet tradition, and all.” Though Laura wouldn’t object to drinking champagne. An inebriated bourgeois Carmilla would be much easier to subdue.

“Oh, well, I’m sorry that I didn’t bring beer. I thought that champagne would be better… because it was more expensive and all… I should have known better, with you as a communist and all,” Carmilla trailed off, stumbling on her words. Laura noticed that the girl looked nervous.

“Don’t worry, I know it’s because of the corporate brainwash that this school has been feeding us. The champagne is fine, really!”

Carmilla blushed. “There’s just something about you,” she began. But she didn’t get further before the door burst open and Laura’s comrades barged in with a communist chair, communist duct tape, and metres of communist rope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None of my straight friends (so like 99% of them) understand the depth of my obsession with Carmilla. None of them.


	14. In which the plot thickens

They had just barely subdued Carmilla when the door slammed open, yet again. “Perry!” an unfamiliar girl cried. “Allison’s gone!”

Laura and her comrades stared at each other. “What? This can’t be happening, we just caught her!” LaF yelled. “What’s up with this corporate brainwash kidnapping bourgeois intelligentsia oppression mindfuckery anyways?”

“Well, Allison is missing,” the girl repeated as she scurried off.

The comrades turned towards the bourgeois dilettante. “Spill,” Laura ordered. “We know you’re in cahoots with the administration and that you’re not just a prole embroiled in false consciousness. We know you’re part of the bourgeoisie. We know that you have a deep personal connection with the dean. So what the hell is going on?”

“I didn’t do it, you pinkos” the bourgeois dilettante wrapped around the finger of the corporation denied pathetically.

“We know you did, you capitalistic oppressor!”

“Laura, wait,” LaF said. “The girl has a point; she obviously didn’t kidnap Allison.”

“But she must know something about the kidnappings.”

“Well, she won’t spill the beans. What do we do about that?”

“Well, I mean, we could follow the lead of the Soviets, Chinese, and North Koreans…” Danny suggested.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Laura grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mending the gaping hole in my heart left by season 3 with tons of fanfic. As always, feel free to drop me a message on my Tumblr!


	15. In which Laura grows disillusioned

Danny had just finished her shift on the ninth day of Carmilla’s imprisonment for the sake of the safety and freedom of the people.

“Good luck, comrade,” she told Laura, who was reporting for her 3 hours of duty.

“She’s still not talking?”

“Nope,” Danny sighed. “The corporate brainwash runs deep in this one.” She clapped Laura on the back and marched out.

Laura glanced at Carmilla, who was still tied to the chair at the foot of her bed. She looked thin, scraggly, and exhausted. Sleep deprivation had been the group’s preferred method of interrogation, especially since Perry was not too keen on visibly injuring a minion of the dean. Laura felt sorry for Carmilla. She was, after all, not as bad as her friends thought, particularly when it was just the two of them. Laura hadn’t given up on her hopes that Carmilla had just been brainwashed, and wasn’t the big bad bourgeois minion that she seemed to be. That was why she had secretly been letting Carmilla sleep during her shifts. She would never admit it to her friends, her prisoner, or even herself, but she let it slide when Carmilla nodded off.

“So where are we going to start today?” She pulled out her little red book of quotations from Chairman Mao. “I know! Let’s read about correcting mistaken ideas!” Once she had turned to the page, Laura read “Even if we achieve success in our work, there should be no reason for one to feel conceited or arrogant. Modesty helps one to go forward, while conceit makes one lag behind. This is a truth we must always bear in mind.” She glanced over at Carmilla, who had already nodded off, despite her only having finished the first quotation of the day.

“Carmilla, you know it would just be much easier for you to tell us what you know. We’ll let you sleep as soon as you spill. You have to explain what’s going on with you and the administration. And why you keep flirting with me. Is it all some part of master plan to capture the leaders of the student revolution?”

“Wait, what?” Carmilla blinked awake. “You thought that I was flirting with you to lure you into a trap?”

“You mean you weren’t? Well, what were you doing then?” The sudden realization flooded Laura’s cheeks with blood. Carmilla smirked, weakly.

“Kill me now and spare me the embarrassment.”

“Oh. Well, um, right then.” Laura glanced at her truth poster of Russian farmers tilling the fields to detract from her embarrassment. “But why are you in cahoots with the admin? Why are you so against us? You’re a student too.”

“I’m not against the cause.”

“Carmilla, you’ve got to make us believe you. We’ve seen the photos of you and the dean, and you were there at every workers’ council meeting that those missing girls disappeared from.”

“It’s not what it seems like!” Carmilla was beginning to grow agitated. “Get me out of this damn chair!” she yelled, trying to shrug the binds off.

“We can’t! For all we know,” Laura shouted back, waving her arms around, “you’re spying on us to report to your little bourgeois friends.”

Carmilla sucked in a breath. “I tell you what I know, you let me go.”

Laura thought about it for a moment. If she did let Carmilla go, Danny, Perry, and LaF might become so angry at her that she would be the next person tied to that chair. And after Danny had suggested a good beating with a rubber hose to get Carmilla talking, Laura really did not want to know how her comrades might interrogate her. But at the same time, Carmilla was the only one who was ready to talk. Out of all of the students, she was the only one who had an inkling of an idea about what happened to those missing girls, and the only one close enough to the bourgeoisie to pass on information. It seemed like Carmilla would only open up to Laura, so she decided to take that risk.

“So are you going to untie me, or what, creampuff?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Call you what? Creampuff?”

“It’s a classist food.”

“Uhhh, okay?”

“Call me… call me semolina porridge.”

“You want me to call you a Soviet breakfast food?”

“Yup.”

Carmilla looked perplexed. But Laura felt triumphant. Finally, her roommate was shedding her false consciousness. She might have been bourgeois by birth, but she would definitely see the error of her ways soon. And Laura couldn’t wait for the day that Carmilla became her comrade.

“So, um, semolina porridge… Are you gonna untie me?”

“Spill first, freedom later.”

Carmilla huffed. “Fine.

“I’m part of the bourgeois intelligentsia. Always have been. My mother was an economics professor before I was born, my stepfather and grandmother are both members of parliament, and my grandfather’s the patriarch of a very old and very rich family. For heaven’s sake, my great aunt was the wife of Joseph McCarthy! My family has this   
whole legacy or heritage or whatever you want to call it of being anti-communists and it’s not just because we’re ideologically opposed to communism. Our family owns this school.”

“I KNEW IT!” Laura yelled to nobody in particular. Carmilla raised her eyebrow and she blushed.

“May I continue?”

“Uh, yeah, sorry.”

“So of course my mother has a vested interest in, you know, not letting the students revolt and take over the school or anything.”

“Wait – what does your mother have to do with all of this, besides being part of the family and all.”

“She’s the dean.”

“WHAT?” Laura shrieked.

“Do you mind keeping it down? Sleep deprived sophomore tied up to a chair in here!”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“She took the position of dean right after I was born. Didn’t use a single day of maternity leave.”

“Well… That’s dedication.”

Carmilla laughed weakly. “No, not really. She fell in love with this guy, when she was young and just out of school. He was a communist revolutionary cattle farmer. He also happens to be my biological father. After Mother became pregnant with me, one day, she just changed her mind and decided she wanted no part of him because he was a communist. She moved back in with my grandparents. He doesn’t even know that he has a daughter.” She looked away and said quietly “I looked him up a few years ago on Facebook. He has this whole family now. A wife, twin sons, and a teen girl. All wearing the hammer and sickle.” She sighed. “They look really happy.”

Laura didn’t know what to say. She had always thought of the members of the bourgeoisie as one dimensional corporate Disney villains. She’d never thought that one of them would have such a sad story to tell.

“Anyways, it was like she raised me to atone for her sins. She made me go to boarding school in England, remarried a moneyed politician, and got into the family business. I love her, but she’s so controlling. I’ve never been able to decide anything for myself because everything I do seems to piss her off. Everything in my life has been to further the family cause. But I would give up all of this – the money, the boarding schools, the Christmases spent in Switzerland – for a mother and father who were happy and who were proud of me.

“Like mother, like daughter, I guess. In my last year of high-school, I met Ell.” Laura saw that Carmilla didn’t even seem to notice that she was crying. Maybe it was the exhaustion, or maybe it was something more. “Long story short, she was a hard core anarchist and my mother didn’t want it to work out. So once we graduated, I was enrolled here at Silas, and forced to partake in her little schemes to disenfranchise the student body.

“I do all sorts of weird crap. At night, Mother has me sneak out and rip down those posters that you and your dimwit squad put up all over campus.”

Laura gave an indignant squeak. “That was you?”

Carmilla smirked. “No need to be incensed, semolina porridge. Yeah, that was me. I also attend my mother’s fancy little dinner gatherings and spy on your workers’ council meetings. I’m not on my mother’s ‘side’, and I really don’t care whatever the hell anybody else chooses to believe in, but going along with her little schemes is so much more convenient than having her badger me otherwise. I was never directly involved with the kidnappings, because I really didn’t agree with them, so I don’t know what exactly Mother has up her sleeve to turn those revolutionaries into stodgy capitalists. But I do know who’s involved and how they’re taken and returned.”

“How?” Laura couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice.

“Why, aren’t you a curious one.” Carmilla motioned to the glass of water with her head. Laura willingly obliged, tilting the glass to her lips until the bourgeois girl had had her fill.

“Well, the girls are selected by the board of directors ahead of time. They’re usually important enough to arouse interest, but not too important that the students get vengeful. The secretaries do the dirty work. They’ll wait outside the meetings with rags soaked in chloroform for their marks. And then, when they’re done with the interrogation, they’ll return the girls to any locked stall in a washroom.”

“Why only girls?”

“I don’t know, porridgeface.”

“Semolina porridge,” Laura corrected.

“PoTAYto, poTAHto, same difference. You gonna untie me now?”

“Is that all you know?”

“Yeah.”

“The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

“You have my word, porridgeface.” Laura glared at her but Carmilla pretended not to notice.

“That was surprisingly disappointing.”

“A deal’s a deal, Laura.”

Huffing, Laura began untying the rope that held Carmilla to the seat.


	16. In which Laura and Danny have a falling out

LaF peeked through the door to room 307. “Hey Laura, time to trade shifts.” They stopped right in their tracks. “Oh, no, Laura, not this.”

“I know this looks bad, LaF, but there’s a good reason for this.”

“A good reason for what?” A third voice joined them in the room. Danny. “Really, Laura? You had to go and untie her!”

“Shush, Danny, you’ll wake her!” Even though, when Laura had sneaked a glance at Carmilla, sleeping soundly as only a member of the bourgeoisie intelligentsia could on the bed, it really didn’t look like that would be an issue.

“She’s dangerous! Next thing you’ll know, the dean’s little army will have kidnapped us all. All of us, Laura.”

“She’s not dangerous; she doesn’t even agree with the kidnappings.”

“But she’s on her mother’s side.”

“I got us information.”

“So in exchange for setting one of our most valuable and dangerous assets loose, you learned that Carmilla here didn’t know anything about the kidnappings.”

“It’s not as bad as you think it –”

“Look, Laura. I know you think you’ve done the rest of us a huge favour, but you haven’t. You’re not just putting yourself on the line. You’ve just put this entire revolution in danger too. You know that the needs of the party far outweigh the needs of the individual. I really expected more from you as a comrade, Laura.”

“A deal is a deal.”

“We don’t negotiate with terrorists.” With that, Danny spun on her disappointed communist heel and left the room.

“You fascist!” Laura yelled after her.

“Anarchist coward!” she yelled back.

Laura slammed the door between her and Danny. She leaned her head against it for support. “Damnit,” she muttered. No matter what her comrade said, she still thought that what she did was justified. Yes, she did take a risk in making that deal with Carmilla, but she hadn’t done it without a great deal of thought beforehand. And Carmilla clearly was in no shape to go running to the dean, and even if she were, Laura didn’t think that she would want to. No, Danny was controlling and righteous and… Laura shuddered. This had happened before. With Stalin, with Kim Jong Il, with Mao. Danny was tightening her grip over her comrades in a bid to set herself up as the next dictator of Silas.

“Earth to Laura,” LaF said, waving a hand in front of her face.

“Danny’s a dictator,” Laura blurted out.

“Huh?”

“I mean, I think she’s going to try and take control of the school once we overthrow admin. LaF, she’s using us!” Laura sneered. “That fascist corporate lackey. Soon enough, this school’s gonna turn into a dictatorship.”

“You kidding me?” LaF raised their eyebrows. “Danny is controlling and intense and righteous but she just wants the same thing as all of us. She doesn’t want to become some kind of dictator with the whole student body under her little finger.”

Laura sighed. “You don’t see it? See how she’s riding the coattails of our revolution to build herself an empire?”

LaF shook their head, putting an arm around Laura. “Frankly, no. You two just had an ideological rift of sorts. Don’t worry, it’ll get better.” They turned to leave the room. “Hey, Laura. There is no one way to be wrong, just as there is no one way to be right. Remember that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's be real, who needs reality TV when we have the presidential debates.  
> As always, feel free to drop me a message on Tumblr!


	17. In which Laura and her comrades attend a workers' council meeting

When Laura and her friends walked into assembly hall hosting the council meeting, they were greeted by dozens of smiling communist faces. They were well known in this circle of left-wing revolutionaries.

“Hey there, Laura.” Wilson Kirsch, a loyal member of the movement, clapped Laura on the back in a comradely way. They quickly took their seats at the back of the auditorium as the agenda was announced. The first speaker of the night was the representative sent from the Summer Society. Laura groaned. Danny.

“Good evening, fellow proletariats!” Danny called. After a brief pause, she added “Laura.” The slight did not go unnoticed by the crowd. A collective intake of proletariat breath could be heard amongst the representatives and spectators.

LaF tapped Laura on the shoulder. “I’m going to the little revolutionaries’ room. You coming?”

Laura shook her head. “No, I want to hear what kind of poisonous capitalist filth she’s going to spew about me.”

LaF just shook their head and snuck out. Laura retrained her eyes on the fascist speaking in front of her.

“Our revolution is being hindered by subversive forces among us!” Danny was yelling like a puppet of the school administration, because she totally was one. “Comrade Laura professes that she is for our cause, but is she really? Or is she just a puppet of the school government? Is Laura Hollis really a revolutionary? Or is she just a corporate bastard.”

“You know I’m not,” Laura yelled. Her blood was boiling. “I am no puppet, but you know what you are, Danny Lawrence? You’re a fascist! You’re a puppet of the bourgeoisie riding the coattails of our revolution so that you can become a dictator!”

Danny spluttered and her elitist face turned bright red. All previous warm and fuzzy more-than-comradely feelings that Laura had had towards her were gone now. She might have been able to forgive Danny before this, but personally attacking her conviction in the movement at the meeting had gone too far.

A bloodcurdling scream echoed across the meeting room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for staying with this so long. When I started writing this crackfic, I had no idea that people were actually going to read/enjoy it. The positive feedback has been overwhelming and it made a friend grudgingly admit that this was a "good fic" so I'm not complaining ;) I've finished writing and the final few chapters should be up in two or three weeks. You know the drill: drop me a Tumblr message chelseathecow.tumblr.com if you want and check out Someone Worth Saving for Ell/Carmilla angst.


	18. In which the evil corporate bourgeoisie laugh imperially behind their thousand dollar mahogany desks

“They’re gone,” Perry screamed. “LaF’s been taken.”

A roar of revolutionary noise sounded through the auditorium as the crowd jumped to their angry revolutionary feet and revolutionarily demanded an explanation from the evil anti-revolution capitalistic school government.

“Nice going, Hollis,” Danny said angrily, bumping Laura on the staircase.

“We need to begin the fighting. Now!” Laura yelled at Danny. “Otherwise it’ll be too late and LaF will be just another brainwashed puppet of the bourgeoisie.”

“No, Laura. We don’t have to follow you. In fact, I think it’s best that we don’t follow you. You and your false revolutionary schemes. Are you even a communist? Because it seems like you’d be better suited to the libertarian movement.”

Ouch. That hurt. “If we don’t move now, it’ll be too late for all of us,” Laura pleaded. “Please, Danny, get them to arm themselves and storm the staff building.”

“No. You don’t get to force us to put our entire movement on the line for one single individual. Laura, you still don’t get it! This is bigger than just one of us.” Danny was spitting now, putting as much fascist venom as she could in her fascist words. “We won’t endanger our cause to participate in your desperate Hail Mary.”

“SHUT UP, YOU COMMIE NUMBSKULLS!” a commanding voice yelled over the crowd. Everybody instantly quieted and turned towards the source. An exhausted dark haired girl wearing baggy sweatpants and a leather jacket stood in the center of the floor. Carmilla.

“It’s her!” Danny yelled. “Comrades, she is not your friend. She’s a spy for the bourgeois intelligentsia and she’s the reason Laura has betrayed you all!”

Carmilla held up a hand to silence the crowd, tensed to spring and lynch her at any moment. “Sure, Danny,” she drawled. “My name is Carmilla Karnstein and I am a member of the bourgeois intelligentsia.” The crowd gasped. Laura gasped too. It took guts for somebody to admit that in front of a crowd of communist revolutionaries.

“Before you behead me, or hang me, or deprive me of sleep,” Carmilla shot a pointed look at Laura and Danny, “or anything else that you commies like to do to people that don’t agree with you, hear me out. Laura’s right. You do need to act now. The dean is my mother, and I know my mother. She won’t stop at anything to reach her goal, and that includes brainwashing every single one of you. If your revolution’s going to work, you need to rise right now.”

“But Laura betrayed the revolution. We can’t follow her!” Murmurs of assent echoed around the auditorium.

“Laura didn’t betray the revolution. She made a deal with me; if I gave her the information she needed, she would let me go. Laura’s an honourable person and a deal is a deal. Don’t you get it? She did it for you guys!”

Laura caught her roommate’s eye. “Thank you,” she mouthed.

Carmilla smiled. “Porridgeface,” she mouthed back.

The audience was growing restless and growing louder. Laura knew she needed to take charge of the energy building around her and direct it towards the revolutionary cause. “Who’s with me?” she yelled.

Perry stood, thumping her fist against her chest. “I am.”

Kirsch followed her lead. “I am.”

And then Danny. “So am I.”

And then the whole student body.

“Let the revolution begin!” Danny yelled awesomely and the crowd gave a communist roar of agreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I briefly considered writing an actual fluff and angst and smut fanfic before I realized that anything I write turns into crack fiction. Oops.


	19. In which Laura and Carmilla have a sincere heart-to-heart conversation

Less than five minutes later, the meeting was deserted, its participants divided between Danny’s group, who was going to arm themselves, and Perry’s group, who was running reconnaissance, scouting, supply, and trench digging. The auditorium was empty, save for the two roommates standing beneath the massive red and gold sickle and hammer flag.

“Thanks Carmilla,” Laura smiled. “You know, we really couldn’t have done this without you.”

“No problem, porridgeface,” Carmilla smirked. Laura playfully swatted her arm. As she turned to leave, Laura grabbed her hand.

“Aren’t you coming to the fight?”

“What? No, I – I’m not.”

“Why not? You’ve come this far.”

“Yeah, but there’s a difference between stopping a mob from lynching your roommate and fighting against your own mother and all you’ve ever known.”

“You won’t do it for us? Not even for me?” Laura could feel the heat creeping up her neck.

“Laura.” Carmilla glanced down at their clasped hands. “My dear sweet comrade Laura.”

“Carmilla, I don’t think of you as just my roommate or comrade. I, um…” Laura stumbled over the words. Blood pounded in her ears and there was a hot communist red flush across her cheeks. “Well I’ve wanted us to be more than just comrades for a while now.”

“We can’t, Laura,” Carmilla said sadly, extricating her hand.

“We can’t?”

“I can’t. And you can’t.”

“Why not?” There were tears pooling in Laura’s eyes. “I love you and you love me and that’s all that really matters! Well, that and communism.”

“No! That’s just the point. That’s not all that matters, Laura.” Carmilla took a shaky breath. “I didn’t tell you the whole story earlier about Ell. She went to my boarding school, she came from the same kind of privileged background, so my mother was ecstatic at first. But she was a hard core anarchist. And I don’t mean like those people who post Harambe memes on their social media profiles. No, Ell was so much more than them. She would go out and flip off the cops, deface public spaces; you name it, she probably did it. She got arrested a lot, and then I would have to go and bail her out. It didn’t matter to me, because we were in love. Or I was in love, at least. It didn’t matter to her how much I loved her, because it wasn’t enough, because I wasn’t an anarchist. My mother was what ultimately broke us up, but we wouldn’t have worked even if Mother didn’t intervene. Ell needed more than I would give her – more than I could give her. She needed me to become a whole different person, and I just couldn’t do that. You’re an Ell, Laura. You need another communist. You need somebody who doesn’t just love you, but who’s by your side no matter what. You fall in love with heroes, and I’m not yours.” Carmilla wiped a tear off of Laura’s face with her thumb, smiling bitterly. “Don’t be sad, creampuff. You’ll find someone. It just won’t be me.”

“What was today then? Don’t tell me we shouldn’t be together because what you pulled today, that was a huge romantic gesture.”

“Just because we can’t be together doesn’t mean that I don’t love you.” And with that, Carmilla turned and walked away.


	20. In which the Dean lays her cards down on the table

The trenches were dug, the troops were armed, and Laura was dressed in her combat gear. The righteous students of Silas gathered in front of the bourgeois administrative building for a final debriefing before the battle.

“Comrades,” Danny yelled, standing on a barricade constructed from the blood and sweat of a thousand brave revolutionaries. “It all comes down to this. This war will be the toughest one of your lives. The choice is yours. To fight with your comrades, to win with your comrades, to die with your comrades. The dean will try to break us down. She will try to sow discord among us and attack our beliefs. But we know the truth. The administration is evil. We are fighting the war of justice, the war of freedom, the war for peace and equality, the war against oppression. We are fighting for the communist revolution. Who’s with me?”

“AYE!” the crowd cheered communistly, raising their weapons. As soon as they began to disperse, however, a giant screen that probably took the lives of a thousand oppressed students to manufacture appeared in front of the administration building. It flickered to life, and instantly, the righteous communist fighters became quiet, wary of the next dirty trick the administration was going to play on them.

“Hello, students,” the dean waved from the screen. “Your little uprising has been quite entertaining to watch, so I thought I’d repay all you pinkos out there with some entertainment that I’ve been waiting to show you.” The camera panned to the right and Laura gasped at what she saw. LaF and ten other revolutionaries were hogtied and slumped in chairs. One of the more bourgeois students, Theo, stood beside them, holding a fistful of electrodes connected to a brainwashing machine in one hand and an axe in the other. The camera panned back to the dean, smiling serenely. “If you even dare try to invade our building, we will hook up all your little comrades here to that machine, and change their minds about everything they’ve ever stood for. Then, we’ll give them weapons, which, I assure you, will be much more powerful than those little toys of yours, and send them back amongst you. However, I’m sure that you’ll find those killed by your brainwashed friends to have the better end of the deal. Because those of you who aren’t dead by the end of this will be taken into custody and brainwashed, like the rest of them.” The dean smiled wickedly. “Better just go home now, right? Cut your losses, go on living your sad little communist lives, let your friends here walk free? Just some food for thought.” The screen went black.

Laura was in shock. So were the rest of the proletariat. The dean had been surprisingly brazen in counterattacking the movement, and it had worked. No doubt, the certainty that every move they would make would further endanger the minds of their comrades had put a damper on the previously cheery atmosphere.

“Comrades.” The dejected revolutionaries turned to look at who was speaking. Danny, again. “That was the first of many attempts that the dean will make to get us to abandon our cause. It is our duty to stay strong, and to keep fighting no matter what. We shall not rest until we are free.”

“What about her hostages?” someone asked.

Danny grinned. “I was hoping someone would ask that. Laura?”

“Yeah?”

“Want to come on a mission with me to rescue our comrades and shoot Theo up the nostrils if we have time?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn't update much this week because I was packing, but I'm finally home now!!! Forgot how much I loved this city, and the last few chapters will be out maybe by the end of next week?


	21. In which Laura and Danny try to save their comrades

“Do you even know where we’re going?”

Danny shrugged. “Nope. If I knew where we were going, it would make this mission ten times less adventurous.”

The pair passed by a window, through which they could see their comrades sprinting towards the front entrance, and dodging evil capitalist grenades being lobbed at them.

The door that they just passed through slammed shut. “Crap, we need to hurry, I think they’re onto us,” Laura whispered.

“Oh, I think so too,” someone said behind them. The girls spun on their heels to find Theo, the bourgeois goon, smirking at them. “Looks like you two just couldn’t wait for your trip to the brainwashing chamber.”

The capitalist goon capitalistly threw open another door in the hallway, capitalistly revealing a room that reminded Laura of a torture chamber. In the centre, chains shackled LaF to a chair and their head was shaved at odd places to make room for electrodes. Laura ran towards her comrade but collided with an invisible obstacle. Glass. There was a glass wall between her and LaF. She should’ve known.

She made to get up but Theo had walked over and was holding her down with a mass-manufactured boot on her back. This reminded Laura of the symbolic power of the patriarchy over the people. She watched the feet shuffle around her as she waited for her strength to return. The familiar combat boots of the dean’s lackeys intermingled with bourgeois designer patent leather heels that she guessed belonged to the dean.

“Long time no see, Miss Hollis.” Yep definitely the dean.

“You let them go right now!” she yelled. The dean only laughed.

“If only I could. But the reprogramming process has already begun, and I can’t just let them leave now.” Laura tilted her head up to find the dean fiddling with a panel of controls.

“You don’t dare! If you even harm a hair on their head-“ Laura threatened, before realizing that the dean had in fact already harmed several hairs on LaF’s head. “If you brainwash them, I swear to Marx and Lenin and Trotsky that when we capture you, we will burn you on the stake!”

The dean paused to consider it. “How… medieval. But also completely implausible.” She bent down so she was face to face with Laura. “You’ll never win. But let’s say that, completely hypothetically, you do. You know why that still won’t happen?” Laura did her best to glare communistly at the dean, but she paid no heed. “Oh, Laura. Entirely too young and naïve for your own good. People are selfish. Even your people. They won’t ever burn me at the stake, because they know what’s good for them. Peace, quiet, and a nice comfortable existence. And I can give that to them. But what can you offer them? Nothing. In the end, little Laura Hollis, we’ll always win. People are selfish. Your revolution will be for naught.”

“Liar!” Laura screamed truthfully. “You’re a liar and a cheat. There is no way our comrades will abandon the cause!”

“Oh, really now?” The dean motioned at Theo and he pulled Laura up by the hair. “Well, unfortunately for you, some of your little comrades have given up already.” She pointed towards the back of the torture chamber, where Laura could see more people, lounging on overstuffed couches, drinking champagne, and enjoying the action. She gasped when she recognized them. They were the other hostages!

“Why aren’t you fighting?” Laura yelled at them.

“The dean gave us a better offer,” one of them smirked. “Good luck with your ‘revolution’, Laura. Not that it’ll ever succeed.” They burst into peals of bourgeois laughter. Laura felt the beginning of tears pricking the back of her eyes. The dean was right. There was no point to her revolution. Here she was, believing that people wanted to fight for freedom, justice, and equality, when in reality, it was every man for herself. She was dumb, and naïve, and entirely too idealistic. Her revolution had been nothing more than a farce.

Laura’s brain couldn’t take much more. It exploded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I snapchatted my friend an "i'm so gay" meme and i'm very satisfied that I got to come out to her via meme but at the same time i'm bummed i didn't think of this sooner.


	22. In which Carmilla comes to the rescue

When Laura regained consciousness, she realized that it wasn’t her brain that blew up, but rather the room that she was standing in.

“Holy Hufflepuff,” she groaned, communistly, because Hufflepuff was the most hardworking house, rising to her feet. The smoke had yet to completely clear, and there was glass everywhere, but in front of her eyes was an unconscious but still alive LaFontaine.

“LaF, are you alright?” Laura yelled, panicked. She started picking the electrodes off of her unconscious comrade.

“Yeah. What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know.”

They threw up their hands. “Come on, not this bourgeois capitalist mind-blowing mindfuckery again!”

“Laura! Laura, where are you?” Laura turned and saw Danny and someone else walking towards her. She gasped again (Laura seemed to be doing a lot of gasping these days) when she recognised the person with her.

“Hey there, cupcake,” Carmilla smiled.

“Did I not tell you that cupcakes were a classist food?”

“Did I not just save your ass by engineering that explosion?”

“Fair point.”

“Hey, guys,” LaF interrupted. “Stop eye-fucking already; you’ll have plenty of time once we’re out of this hellhole.” Carmilla blushed a pretty shade of red, and Laura’s stomach flipped at the sight. Of course, Laura told herself it was definitely because red was a communist colour, and not at all because she had deep deep feelings for Carmilla. But LaF was right. There was plenty of time left for them to eye-fuck.

“But it’s all over,” Laura said, dejected. “Didn’t you hear? This revolution was doomed from the start.”

“Well, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. And by that, I mean, let’s get out of here!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with all seriousness i am so done with bourgeois self serving lazy school administrations


	23. In which I can’t actually name this chapter because that would be a major spoiler

The comrades ran for their lives from the brainwashing chamber. They ran through hallways filled with million dollar portraits of capitalist overlords like Jacob Astor and Henry Ford, they ran down stairways constructed with the bones of former revolutionaries, and they finally ran out the back door, only to stop dead in their tracks. Laura had never seen what was behind the administrative building on campus, but now she wished that she had. Just feet away from her was the dean, covered in dust, and a few steps behind her was a giant bourgeois abyss probably constructed with the slave labour of past students.

“We meet again, little Laura Hollis.” The dean smiled evilly and capitalistly as she reached out and grabbed Carmilla by the front of her shirt. “Now you call off your little ragtag group of commies, or your precious Carmilla’s going for a ride… off this cliff and into the abyss.”

“You wouldn’t,” Laura breathed. “She’s your daughter.”

“Oh, Miss Hollis.” The dean pushed her daughter closer to the edge. “You’ll find that I would. Now call them off.”

“We won’t,” Danny growled. “You’re bluffing. There’s no way you’d kill your own daughter. And there’s no way we’d abandon our cause.”

The dean shrugged. “Have it your way then.” And she pushed Carmilla into the abyss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update should have come a while ago, but school got really busy and Donald Trump was elected and that kind of put a damper on my life...


	24. In which Laura and the Dean face off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand we're back!

“CARMILLA!” Laura screamed. She dropped to her hands and knees at the edge of the abyss, but try as she might, she couldn’t see past the all-consuming darkness inside. Maybe it was good that she couldn’t see. “CARMILLA!”

“She’s gone, dear,” the dean said smugly. She stepped closer to Laura and grabbed the collar of her shirt. “But don’t fret. You’ll be with her soon.”

“I can’t believe you’d do that! She was your daughter!” Tears were streaming down Laura’s cheeks, but she didn’t care. "What kind of mother would just do that?”

The dean shrugged again. “Collateral damage, I suppose. What’s done is done.”

“How could you? Did you ever love her? Do you even know what love is?”

For the first time since she had the met the dean, Laura saw her façade crack. Could it be? The dean looked unsure of herself.

“Oh, you poor soul,” Laura sobbed. “How could you have been so hurt that you couldn’t love anymore? That you don’t believe in anything?”

The dean snarled. “Carmilla reminded me of every rotten thing about her father.”

“But you still loved him. You still love him.”

“No,” the dean laughed bitterly. “Remember? I can’t love anymore.”

“No. You chose to bury those feelings. And that made you selfish.” A lightbulb went off in Laura’s head. “Choosing not to love makes you selfish,” she said, trying to piece everything together. “And selfishness is the end of this revolution.”

“What are you getting at, Laura?” her comrades asked, forgetting the fact that the dean was still trying to push her off the edge of an abyss.

“Don’t you get it? Selfishness caused those ‘comrades’ to turn against us. But they never really were our comrades to begin with. They were part of the bourgeoisie, even though we didn’t know it at the time. The bourgeoisie are the selfish ones. This revolution isn’t doomed. Not if I commit the ultimate unselfish act.” Laura smirked at the dean. “Guess who’s going down?” she said. Then she grabbed a fistful of the dean’s shirt and leaned back, letting the abyss swallow them whole.


	25. In which we rapidly approach the conclusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter, guys :)

The first thing that Laura thought was that she was dead. Every part of her hurt. The abyss was deeper than she had initially thought and the opening was just a bright crack, miles and miles above her. Then, she realized, rather belatedly, that if she was in pain, there was a pretty good chance she was still alive. The next thought was that if she was still alive, maybe Carmilla would be too. Ignoring the pain in her bones, Laura pushed herself to her feet. She realized there was something soft beneath her and fear twisted her stomach until she realized it wasn’t Carmilla, but the corpse of the dean, who had broken her fall.

“Carmilla?” Laura yelled. “Carmilla?” She felt around the ground of the abyss until her fingers met a warm body. “Please don’t be dead, please, please, please don’t be dead.” Her fingers found their way to her neck, and she felt for a pulse. It was faint, but it was still there.

“Well, that was a kick,” Carmilla whispered hoarsely. “I think I broke my leg on the way down.” She didn’t have a chance to say anything else before Laura was kissing her.

“Woah, there. Laura, we talked about this,” Carmilla said, breaking the kiss.

“Yeah, but a lot has changed since then.”

“A lot has changed? It’s been two hours.”

“Yeah, but a lot happened those two hours. Carmilla, I don’t care what you believe or I believe. Your mother was so twisted by what she believed in that she forgot how to love. She turned evil. She subverted what she believed in. I don’t want to be like her. I don’t want communism to stand in the way of our love. Carmilla, I don’t care about any of that anymore. I don’t need another communist. You’re enough. I need you. I love you.”

“Well, your sudden change of heart rivals any level of brainwashing that my mother could ever accomplish. But, for what it’s worth, I love you too.”


End file.
